A Bloody Night in Cres

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CreditIllustration by Na Kim

By John Wray

Feb. 19, 2014

Not long ago, I spent a month with Aniza and Dinko Muskardin, residents of the Croatian island of Cres, enjoying their emphatic Balkan hospitality in exchange for a few weeks’ help around their farm. I was besotted by my elderly hosts. I helped Dinko cut oak and juniper, search the hills for lost sheep and bottle the evil-smelling yellow wine that he aged in a cracked, slimy barrel. I was so besotted, in fact, that I didn’t hesitate when my host said to me, with an ominous gleam in his eyes, that it was time to kill the year-old “pecorina.” (Dinko was old enough to remember the Mussolini era, and we spoke in a pidgin of Italian.)

I saw visions of myself cradling a tabby-size lamb in my arms, whispering to it soothingly while Dinko sharpened some time-blackened dagger. I won’t go into the grisly details of what happened next, but I acquitted myself with as much dignity as a city boy with a weak stomach could muster. Dinko seemed to think so, too: He promised me “il parte più dolce” at the next evening’s end-of-summer feast.

I spent the next 24 hours mentally reviewing the deceased lamb’s anatomy, nicely dressed and set before me on a plate. But when Aniza finally called me down to dinner, what confronted me was no “parte” of the lamb: It was a wooden bowl filled with uncooked, unseasoned, partly coagulated blood.

I looked from the bowl to Aniza, who seemed to nod and shrug her shoulders simultaneously. Dinko smacked his lips and gave a happy titter. A braver, less-eager-to-please guest might have excused himself from this rite of passage or simply shut his eyes and let himself pass out. But I polished off the bowl’s entire contents.

One year later, when I returned to the couple’s home for a week’s vacation, I asked my hosts if they recalled that fateful dinner. After a bashful silence, they looked at each other and broke out into yelps of helpless, childish laughter. It occurred to me, watching them, that I might have been duped. Dinko had never actually said that lamb’s blood was a Dalmatian delicacy, I realized, let alone a local rite of passage. I may not have impressed my hosts with my bloodthirstiness, but I furnished them with genuine amusement. What more could any house guest hope for?